Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/43

 FIGURES OF DEITIES. 21 hands upon its bowed thighs. A lion's skin covers the shoulders, the fore-paws hanging down upon the chest, which again is ornamented by a lion's mask suspended by a cord. The salient abdomen is supported by a narrow girdle. The beard is arranged in tresses with spiral ends, as in the Assyrian sculptures (Vol. I. Fig. 21) ; l the execution of the statuette from Tharros (Fig. 18) is more summary ; the hands are laid upon the chest, but the animal's skin still covers all the upper part of the body, while the open mouth with its heavy moustache gives it the same general look as the figure from Tortosa. FIG. 18. Terra-cotta statuette of Bes. From Tharros. Height 7| inches. Cagliari Museum. The same type is often found upon gems. We have already figured a scarab with Bes upon its convex side (Vol. I. Fig. 1 M. HEUZEY (Catalogue, No. 197) has ascertained that this figure is not of common clay, but of a white earth glazed, the glaze having almost vanished with time. He suggests that it may -have been imported from Egypt, but we think he is mistaken. The execution of the beard is not Egyptian ; as a rule the sculptors of the Nile valley cut that appendage square, and ploughed it with vertical stroke^ ; in this case its manipulation is like that of the Assyrian artists. Finally, the Egyptian glaze was too solid to disappear in this fashion and leave to the object on which it was placed the look of a simple terra-cotta. We should have some difficulty in quoting anything of undoubtedly Egyptian origin from which the glaze has thus perished.